


Bloom

by NervousAliceCurious



Category: Escape the Night (Web Series)
Genre: Crushing Loss, Established friendships, Gen, Helpless Bystanding, Sacrifice, Untold Story, death trap, thorns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-17 23:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19964686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAliceCurious/pseuds/NervousAliceCurious
Summary: The promised sequel to 'Wilted'. Here, someone will die to save a life. But who?WARNING: Very graphic violence.





	Bloom

“What!?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

“Take her _place!!?_ ”

Matt felt his stomach roil.

“We have to…we have to trade-off who’s dying here-“

“No s*, Sherlock!” Nikita exclaimed.

“Are we gonna do it? Are we really gonna do it!?”

Manny kept repeating it over and over-

“Maybe we should send in Joey”, Colleen suggested helpfully.

“After all, he _did_ just get finished telling us that we all have to die”.

“Me!!?”

“Colleen, that’s…not the most intelligent thing to say…”

JC carefully inserted his two-cents.

“Well, who should do it then?”

Roi’s forehead was practically dripping with fear.

“How about you?”

Nikita gave him a pointed glare.

“You’re the mother-trucking Daredevil!!”

“Hey, leave him alone!” Teala defended.

“I’m just stating a fact, it’s not my fault if he won’t live up to his hype”.

“No, no, I’ll do it-“

“-Okay, this is getting us nowhere”.

Safiya slapped her hands lightly onto her thighs, and stood up.

“We need to figure this out, and we need to do it in a calm, rational manner, otherwise, Rosanna will be dead and all we’ll have to show for it is a bunch of broken hearts and broken pride”.

“Well said”.

JC gathered up the cards.

“Think we should check it out for ourselves?”

“Absolutely!!”

Roi was up and out the refrigerator door before anyone could stop him!

“-Wait!”

Teala was the next to follow.

“You don’t know what’s waiting for you out there!”

The Hippie sighed.

“Don’t get lost, you two…”

“You know what?”

MatPat’s feet could not carry him out of there fast enough!

“I think they’ve got the right idea”.

“Yeah, we won’t know what we’re dealing with unless we go see it for certain”.

“-Wait for me, you guys!”

Joey raced after the determined Detective and Investigative Reporter, leaving the Troublemaker, the Record Producer, and the Disco Dancer all alone.

Nikita shrugged while simultaneously rolling her eyes.

“Fine! Let’s get this over with”.

Manny hurriedly felt around in his pocket for his lucky lip gloss.

“Right behind you”.

Colleen sat there for a moment, thinking.

Watching as the two of them disappeared through the doorway.

She nervously fluffed up the feathers on her coat, and then rushed off to follow!

“Hey!!

Don’t leave without me, b*!”

*

“What do you think’s going on in there?”

“I don’t know”.

Calliope’s expression was inscrutable.

“A solo challenge has never happened before.

Ever”.

“‘Before’?”

Mortimer’s heart skipped a beat.

“What do you mean?

Did something like this-!?”

“This isn’t a good time to talk about it now”.

Her tone carried an undercurrent of deep, deep sadness.

“Okay…I won’t press it”.

She looked up at him in surprise.

“What?”

“…For a Mayor’s boy, you are nothing like I thought”.

**BOOM-**

“What was that!?”

He withdrew his gun, while Calliope brandished her dented crowbar.

“It’s beginning”.

“What is!!?”

“The end”.

Before he could ask her exactly what she meant by that, giant, purple thorns ripped out of the ground surrounding the pitifully-sized ticket office.

They bashed, and battered into the fairly-sturdy walls, creating crater-sized dents.

It was clear to them both that Rosanna would not be able to hold out against the assault for very long.

“I’m going in there”.

“You can’t!”

-He was barely able to take one stride.

“What-Calliope!?”

Her sharp nails had wrapped themselves firmly about his wrist.

“You cannot interfere”.

“Why not?

We were able to save them from the plant beasts-”

“This is different”.

“What do you mean, ‘this is different’-“

“Interfering always has consequences”.

Not intending to let that cryptic comment stand, he opened his mouth to speak…

“Mortimer! Calliope!!”

Eight winded Guests sprinted up to them-

And Matt outpaced them all.

“Children!”

Calliope worriedly placed her hands upon his shoulders.

“What has happened?

Why are you all not waiting in the lounge!?”

“Something…something happened…”

JC leaned over, hands on his knees for balance.

Breaths coming hard and fast…

“Ro is going to die unless one of us takes her place!!”

Safiya, who had been only inches behind the distraught Detective felt a shiver run down her spine.

That desperate shout-

That was not like him at all.

“We saw it on a TV screen!” Colleen added quickly.

“That green-eyed doll said she’d taken on the whole shebang from 'some idiot who couldn’t do their job'?”

“Pretty much sums up this whole plant disaster goin’ on in front of us”, Nikita quipped.

“J*s! Ro’s gonna be a pancake soon if this keeps up…”, Manny gasped.

He winced as yet another wall folded like paper.

Matt saw it, and went ghost-white.

“RO!!!”

He barreled toward the death trap like a rocket, prompting her to chase after him!

“Matt!? MATT!!”

She threw her arms around him, and caved in the back of his knee.

“OW-“

With a thump, they both went tumbling to the dusty ground.

“What was that for!?” he coughed.

They’d managed to kick up a lot of dust…

“You are the last person I would expect to act so reckless-“

“Well Ro will be impaled if somebody doesn’t do _something_!”

“If you go in there, _you_ will be impaled!”

“But this never should’ve happened in the first place-“

“But it did, and you’ve got a wife and child waiting for you at home!!”

He blinked.

“Did you…”

_Hear our farewell conversation…?_

“Yes, I heard it, and I 100% agree with her!”

“…”

_Safiya…_

“As soon as Roi and Teala come back, we’ll make our decision.

Until then, stay. Put”.

“Speaking of that, where are they?”

Joey gawked at the rare (and only) sight of MatPat losing his cool.

“Uh…”

_*Gulp*_

“They had to go…deal with something…”

“Hey!”

Waving wildly, the Daredevil himself came speeding up to the party, the Super Spy trailing exhaustedly behind.

Notably, her coat was gone.

“What’s up?

Did anybody save Ro yet!?”

“B*, that should be _you_ in there and not her!!”

Nikita could no longer hold back her ire.

“How in the h* did you weasel your way out of this one!?”

“I’m _lucky!!_ ”

Manny raised an eyebrow.

“You know what?

I think she’s being honest”.

Roi felt his heart sink.

They were going to do this _again!?_

“Hey!

Come on guys, stop…

This isn’t gonna get us anywhere”.

“I agree”, said Safiya.

“-Me too, but what’s this about some kind of takeover?”

Mortimer was very much confused.

“What else did the green-eyed doll say?”

Calliope’s eyes were wary.

“She said that we had to sacrifice someone in Ro’s place or else”.

The Disco Dancer shot a nervous glance at the collapsing structure.

“Or else what?”

“Or else she’d get a ‘Crown of Thorns’-Oh”.

Her stomach heaved as she realized.

“Eww!!

Ro’s gonna have thorns impaled in her brain!?”

“-Don’t put it like that!”

MatPat’s shout made her almost stumble out of her impractical shoes.

“She won’t die.

Not if we-“

“Matt?”

Nikita would like to be unfazed by this, but…

“Matt, are you implying that we should elect someone else to die!!?”

Joey was horrified!

“I don’t WANT to-!”

“But you have to admit, that’s what it sounds like”.

It was out before Manny could stop it, and he immediately regretted it when he saw the hurt bloom on Matt’s face.

“Okay, that came out wrong-“

“Children, please!”

Calliope did her best to calm them down-

“Ro will not have long if we keep this up”.

“So who do we choose?”

JC’s level-headedness finished the job.

“Me”.

MatPat nearly swallowed his tongue!  
  
  
“Safiya!?”

“What? Why!?”

Nikita was also having trouble processing this new development-

“Because…”

She took a steadying breath.

“You and Manny are best friends.

Joey, we need you alive-“

“Yes, thank you! FINALLY someone says it!!”

“We do?”

This from Colleen.

“He said he would be able to save everyone with that giant crystal”.

“But I don’t understand why it has to be him-“

“You need to be here to kick his a* if he’s lying”.

“Never mind. I accept”.

“WHAT!?”

“Roi will always, always put his life before Teala’s so both of them are out-“

“That is true”, he admitted.

“JC, you already said that it’s your job to keep them out of trouble”.

He nodded.

“And Mortimer and Calliope-you guys have to be here to protect us during the rest of this nightmare”.

“God bless you, child…”, she murmured.

“What about me-I can do this, you don’t have to!”

MatPat shot another worried glance at the leveled ticket office.

“You are her BROTHER”.

She firmly grasped his shoulders.

“You are the one she’s going to want to see after it all goes to H*”.

“But-“

“I know, I know, and believe me, I am scared _spitless_ ”.

“She’s going to want to see you too-“

“There’s no other way around it”.

“-Actually there is”.

The Hippie held out the thirteenth card.

“We could try to track down this guy…it’s a horrible idea, but-

Then Rosanna would have both of her friends”.

“And where is he?”

…

He couldn’t answer.

He didn’t know.

Roi and Teala looked at each other.

“Um-“

**CRASSSHH-**

“NO!!”

The roof had caved in…

“We don’t have time for him to show up!!

You all have somebody who needs you, and I’m just in the way!”

“That’s not true-“

Matt reached for her-

“I’ll see you all on the flip side”.

And she ducked out from under his grasp.

“SAFIYAAA!!”

*

She couldn’t look back.

If she did, she wouldn’t go.

She wouldn’t run to the shaking, collapsing mess of a ticket booth, and she wouldn’t be kicking the door down in one stroke.

She wouldn’t be hopping over and under the mass of thick, tangled briars threatening to split her open if she stood still for too long.

“ROSANNA!!?”

“Saf-!!”

A feeble cry towards the back.

Following the terrified sound, she slid through a rapidly-shrinking gap.

Finding the small Jetsetter struggling to repel the bloodthirsty foliage, hands cut up and bleeding with every movement.

It was as if a nest of them had claimed the space immediately over her head, each wince as she pushed them away another stab through her heart.

“Rosanna!”

She looked up, tears starting to well in her eyes.

“Safiya…?”

She visibly jumped as the taller girl shoved her out of the line of fire!

“Saf-“

“Go! Go **now-“**

“What-“

“Just do it!!

MatPat needs you".

“But what about-“

The Investigative Reporter flashed her a sad smile.

“It’s okay”.

Green eyes burned through the monitor on the overturned desk.

“I’ll be **fine** ”.

The thorns contorted themselves into a rough-looking crown, and stabbed into her brain.

**“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”**

-

Fire.

Fire- _pain_ -

She gasped as they twined around her limbs.

Lacerations spilled blood.

Mind was failing…

To numbness

Can’t

think

The paralyzing ache was incredible.

She felt red pour from her mouth.

Her eyes-

"R-o-"

A haze fell.

**Nevermore.**

-

Rosanna screamed, and tried her hardest to pull down the lifeless shell.

Hands now firmly coated with scarlet and poison.

“Safiya!

_Safiya…_

**Safiya!!!!** ”

Something wound around her shoe.

Pulled-

“No-“

She scratched desperately for something to hold onto as the thorns receded.

Disappearing back into the ground as if by magic alone.

Still scratching as she was whisked away, feet stumbling at the gentle guiding, toes dragging in the dirt as she was brought trembling and crying into the arms of her friends.

_“Ro!!”_

Matt practically smothered her into a hug, the fabric of his coat sucking against her mouth as she sobbed out the words:

“It’s Safiya!

She’s dead-

_She’s dead!!”_

“I know…I know…”

“Safiya’s dead?” Manny whispered, while Roi and Teala looked at each other in horror.

JC closed his eyes.

Colleen let out a pent-up breath…

And Nikita swallowed down any and all emotion.

Joey felt himself shaking in his boots.

“I can’t believe this”.

Calliope shook her head in sadness.

“She will be missed”.

“She was an epic fighter-“

Mortimer blinked away tears.

“We…we should go”.

“But what about the key?” the Troublemaker countered.

“It will be there when we return”, the woman said quietly.

No one had the strength to argue with her.

*

On the way to the Lounge, Roi leaned in to the Super Spy.

“Should we tell them what happened?”

“Are you kidding me!? They would totally brush us off!”

“But-“

“When they ask, or make a stink, _then_ we’ll tell them".

"Okay..."

He was trying not to be consumed by his doubts too hard.

*

Hearts heavy with grief (some more so than others), the Guests watched while Joey heaved open the refrigerator door.

The loss of Safiya was _not_ one they had expected-

At _all_.

As such, it sat dangling over their heads like a hopelessly black cloud-

“B* who are _you!?_ ”

Nikita’s sharp cry reverberated through the air, causing the person sitting on the couch to **jump**.

“What the-!?” Manny’s jaw dropped.

“Okay, what’s going on here-“ Colleen said in a confrontational tone of voice.

“Everyone stand back!” Calliope warned.

Roi shifted uncomfortably.

“Um…actually…”

“That’s the speaker who had the key”, Rosanna whimpered softly.

“Oh. Really”. MatPat’s eyes grew full of distrust.

“Mm-hm…”

“Well congrats, sir, you’ve officially managed to murder one of our best friends”.

“Yeah”, Joey supported.

“How about you start talking".

-A click from Mortimer’s gun.

He lightly shouldered by the others, barrel cocked.

“Who are you and what on earth was that!?”

“Wait”.

He held up both arms in surrender.

“I am not your enemy here!”

“If not you, then who is?”

JC was genuinely curious.

“-We can answer that!”

Roi pushed to the front, Teala hot on his heels.

Together, they formed a human shield.

“You see-“

“When we were gone”.

She met their suspicious gazes with a new confidence they had never, ever seen before from her.

“We saved this guy from death".

**Author's Note:**

> (Took me like, three whole months to get here whoops).
> 
> How many pitch forks can I get thrown at me in one hour...?
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading!!
> 
> PART 1. (Wilted): https://archiveofourown.org/works/18912841


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